Going Underground: Killing Floor's Summer Update

Summer has arrived in London, and it's pretty glorious all right. But I say that as someone on the third floor with a nice south-facing window and a cat dozing in the sunlight. Parts of London are today, I say exaggerating only an awful lot, Hellish. You hop on the Central Line during rush hour tonight and you'll see. So where better to set a level in a co-op horror shooter?

Killing Floor's annual summer update has arrived, with goodies including a new Underground map and a new playable mutant-murdering lady. And, as they cannily do with big updates, developers Tripwire have also launched a few new paid DLC packs and put the game on sale.

The centrepiece of the update is Transit, a new objective-based map about destroying a base hidden in the Underground, which leads into Killing Floor 2's Parisian adventures too. It's a linear map with objectives like "blow that door up" and "kill those mutants," guided by the daughter of that super-nerd boss mutant, the Patriarch. I've had a crack and it's fun enough; I shot lots of mutants and it has a "mind the gap" joke. It didn't feel much like the Underground, but do games ever?

Rachel Clamely's a new player character too, unlocked by completing achievements on Transit. It's nice to see another overtly female character (do people still bicker about the identity of TF2's Pyro?), and the first that's not either paid DLC or only unlockable during special events. A shame she's not playable by default, though.

Transit's also playable in Wave mode, joining the update's two new Wave-only maps: a castle in Stronghold, and the snowy smalltown Siren's Belch.

To get more people joining in the summer fun, Tripwire have knocked 75% off the price on Steam, bringing it to £3.74. All DLC is half-price too, except for the new packs of neon weapon and skins.